Imagine a parrot that cannot fly, spends much of its life walking through forests at night, can live for decades, and attracts mates by producing deep booming calls that travel …
Some sharks kill prey by overpowering it. The cookiecutter shark uses a very different strategy: it takes a piece and leaves the victim alive. A typical cookiecutter shark bite is …
A spider stretched across a dinner plate sounds like something invented for a horror movie, yet one species can genuinely approach that scale. The giant huntsman spider size is extraordinary …
If you looked for a katydid’s ears, its head would be the obvious place to start. You would also be looking in the wrong place. The remarkable katydid ears on …
A pistol shrimp is only a few centimeters long, yet it can produce an underwater sound powerful enough to compete with some of the loudest biological noises in the sea. …
Catching a bee in midair is impressive. Swallowing one without being stung requires another level of specialization. The famous bee-eater sting removal behavior solves that problem through a carefully coordinated …
Cut many animals in half and the result is catastrophic injury. Cut certain planarian flatworms into appropriately sized fragments, however, and something extraordinary can happen: separate pieces can rebuild the …
Few courtship displays are as instantly recognizable as a blue-footed booby lifting one brilliant turquoise foot after another in an exaggerated high-stepping dance. The performance looks comical to human observers, …
A group of giant river otters moving through an Amazonian river can look less like a collection of independent animals and more like a coordinated team. Adults hunt, patrol territorial …
A tarsier staring through a dark Southeast Asian forest looks almost unreal. Its enormous eyes dominate its tiny face, giving the impression that it can see everything around it. Yet …